My Health Story- becoming vegan, how I learnt to thrive, not just survive

Why did you become vegan? It is a question I get asked on such a regular basis, and in truth I never thought I would become vegan, I loved meat and cheese. So I thought it would be really important to do a post about my story as my journey has been a complex one. My health has had many ups and downs over the years. I am generally really healthy until I am not and something normally sends me to hospital every couple of years. The common thread for me has always been digestion issues. This all came to a massive head 6 years ago when my gallbladder died a horrible death and had to be removed. I had what is called as a gallbladder attack, where I was in excruciating pains, but I didn’t have gallstones, this made my case much harder to diagnose. After many tests the Doctors where finally able to figure out that my gallbladder had zero percent gallbladder function and it had to come out. I thought my problems would end there, but I was wrong¦

What then came was 5 years of horrible digestion problems, and I could just never get well. I tried to eat really healthy, had low sugar, lots of veggies and protein, meats, and salads but nothing did the trick. I had chronic irritable bowel syndrome. This basically meant up until 11am everyday my digestion/bowels/life was a mess¦ I had so much pain and discomfort and was on and off on prescription medication, not living a very happy life. When I was living in London I decided to do a detox for a month and cut out animal products, just going vegan for a month and within days my symptoms that had plagued me for years resolved¦

It was then I realised that not having a gallbladder anymore meant that my body could not handle animal products anymore. It was a bit of a shock to my system, if nothing other than my love for cheese but I realised how amazing I felt right now was completely worth it. So there I had it, I was vegan. The longer that I was vegan my whole attitude changed, the way I thought about animals now meant that I didn’t want to have any part in them being harmed for my own wellbeing. So I stopped wearing/buying leather and looked more and more into the animal products that crept into my life. I watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot of books, listened to podcasts about how to be a healthy vegan and what I need to eat to get my nutritional requirements. Going vegan is a huge life adjustment, you need to learn your quick go-to breakfast, lunches and dinners, but eventually it just gets easier.

I am not one of those vegans who turn their nose up at people eating meat around them, nor do I try and make other people go vegan or get all up on my high horse about it. My boyfriend eats meat; I have no problem with this. I just know what makes my body feel good and that is a big part of my message is finding what suits your body. So yes my recipes will be plant based but please know this comes from a happy, healthy place.

I will share more about my journey as we go along, thank you for reading.

Have you ever tried eating plant based or are you vegan? What made you make the switch?